IRVINE, Calif. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Multiple sclerosis, juvenile
diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis affect millions of Americans, yet doctors
still aren’t sure what causes autoimmune diseases.
After 26 years with diabetes, Suzy Won Davidson knows the drill. And at 36 she’s
no longer the child who once dreamed of a cure.
"We’ll find a cure. About five years. Give us five years. So every five years
another five years would go by and I’d say, 'Wow. There’s not a cure yet,'" Won
Davidson recalls.
Not yet, but she finds renewed hope in a lab at the University of California,
Irvine.
In tests on human blood cells, researchers blocked destructive cells responsible
for juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, actually
stopping the diseases in rats.
Their weapons? Modified compounds from sea anemone venom and a compound from a
shrub.
"At this stage we don’t know if it’ll be a long term treatment or if treatment
for a period of time will completely suppress the disease and prevent it from
coming back," says Christine Beeton, Ph.D., a physiology researcher at the
University of California, Irvine.
In autoimmune diseases, the immune system attacks the body’s own tissue. The
attacking cells need ion channels to function. But using compounds from a rue
plant and a sea anemone, researchers blocked those channels without blocking
cells needed to fight infection.
"It gives us more clues. It’s sort of like putting a jigsaw puzzle together
where the more pieces you can fill in, the easier it is to fill in the rest of
the puzzle," Won Davidson says.
A puzzle that could lead to clinical trials … perhaps a new treatment in the
years ahead. Won Davidson’s heard that promise before, but this time she’s old
enough to help make it happen. She helps raise money to fund UC Irvine's center
for diabetes treatment and research in her spare time.
Now that researchers have proven the compounds work in-vitro on human cells and
in animal tests, they hope to begin testing in humans in the next few years.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Christine Beeton, Ph.D.
cbeeton@uci.edu
or
George Chandy
gchandy@uci.edu
